We have made it to 5th and final Die Hard movie. A Good Day to Die Hard this is my review for the 5th Die Hard movie, and let's get started!
The Good:
I think the idea for the movie is pretty good. John McClane goes to Moscow to see what what is going on with his son. Only to find out his son is in a mission against Russians, that idea of having John McClane team up with his son is a good idea for a Die Hard movie.
The film has all the action you want in this franchise. It's not as over the top as Live Free or Die Hard or as normal as Die Hard 1-3, it's right there in the middle. There are car chases, shoot outs, and all sorts of action that John and Jack McClane get into. So if you enjoy that in this franchise you get that in the movie.
I also like that we move out of the United States for this film. We get to see the action in Moscow and I think that it was a good idea to move the plot to a different country so it feels different and it doesn't feel like a rehash of the original movie like how Die Hard 2 did.
Lastly, Bruce Willis and Jai Courtney have a nice chemistry and they have a relationship arc and also have some nice funny moments between the two of them that add some nice entertainment to the movie.
The Bad:
I think this is easily the weakest franchise. The past 4 movies all have this clear villain that you want to see John McClane take out. Here it's just Russians showing up in places just to have action scenes, and in the third act they have a villain but it feels off from the rest of the movie. That was the first problem of the movie.
Second, they make John be this screw-up dad and you don't watch a Die Hard movie to have John be a screw-up dad, you want him to be this great action hero. That is not what this movie gives you. The reason for that is you have John go to Russia but accidentally have mess up and from that point to 60-70 minutes mark he keeps on accidentally messing up. And you learn that when he was raising kids he wasn't a very good dad, so add that together and it doesn't put John McClane in a good light.
Third, and ties back to what I mentioned where since John keeps on messing up and his son is talking down and you don't want his son talking down. So for 60% of the movie his son is very unlikeable and that's a problem because he is one of the most important characters in the movie, so one of the main characters is unlikeable for 60% of the movie.
Fourth, the film is somewhat light on action, you have this big long car chase in Moscow (which is 2-3 minutes to long), a mini shoot out, another shoot out, then the third act. That is all the action in the movie, and the previous four movies had more action in them so I don't know why they didn't to the same for this movie.
Finally, the movie can have pacing issues where there is a good amount of time in between the action scenes, and the action scenes are fun. But when it's not action you have people talking or Jack McClane talking down to John McClane.
Overall, I went into this movie hearing this a bad movie film. I enjoyed elements of the movie, and I can see where people are coming from, but it wasn't the case for me. And in the next couple of days I will rank the Die Hard.
Also in about a week and a half I will start my DCEU review series leading up to Wonder Woman 1984 (hoping that it comes out in October), and I will be starting with Man of Steel. So look for to that coming in the near future!
The Score: 5.3/10 (C)
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